How did Vintage 2025 go?
It’s hard to believe, but the vineyard team have just hung up their work boots after finishing one of the earliest vintages ever. Beginning Vintage 2025 with a pick on the 24th of January, all 110 Ha of the vineyard was picked by the 13th of March.
It has been such a dry season, in fact we just got our first decent bit of rain since last year on Thursday 😊 All of the grapevine growth stages had been tracking early, so it came as no big surprise – but we still didn’t quite have the harvester ready to go in January – eeek!
The dry season resulted in smaller berries, but great concentration of flavour and the consistent warm days enabled perfect, even ripening.
We have named Vintage 2025 the YEAR OF THE BIRDS, in honour of the massive flocks of rainbow lorikeets who decided to gather in McLaren Vale this year. They had a lovely time divebombing into the vineyard and eating as many grapes as they could.
We were relieved to have our bird nets up on some of our vineyard, as they took a particular liking to the early red varieties, Tempranillo and Mencia. Beautiful birds, but menaces this year.
I am really happy with the way the ferments are looking in the winery. A very strong year for our old block shiraz – turning 77 years young in 2025. The colour and concentration in Shiraz is exceptional. And Grenache is looking exceptional too!
The whites are all looking incredible, and we are excited to have a few more tonnes of Falanghina to play with, as well as extra blocks of Fiano this year. Fingers crossed this means we will be able to keep up with the crazy demand for our delicious Fiano since its trophy win last year – and I will be able to keep my ‘Queen of Fiano’ crown haha!
After such a hectic season, I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to having an Easter off for a change, not usually on offer for us wine folk, so extra hot cross buns for me!
To really see what this vintage has been like though, I hope you have been catching the videos of my exploits via my new Rayban Meta sunglasses on Instagram it’ll feel like you’re in the vineyard and winery with me!
Otherwise, check out a few great snapshots below of Vintage 2025 at Oliver’s Taranga…
Thanks,
Corrina
